China pollution: How it affects travelers

By Thomas Bird, for CNN

Updated 0828 GMT (1628 HKT) January 23, 2014

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Biking through China's pollution – The Ride for Hope charity bike ride covered 2,000 kilometers between the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen and Shanghai. Epic smog hovered over riders, such as bike mechanic Carl Wu (pictured), for most of the route.

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Sites of historic beauty – The author's team encountered this scene on the leg between historic cities of poetry and nature, Hangzhou and Suzhou. Suzhou's canal network has earned the nickname, "The Venice of the East."

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Bikers everywhere affected – Shocking pollution is a nationwide issue. A few weeks before the 2013 Ride for Hope commenced, schools were closed due to the heavy smog in Jilin (pictured) in northeast China.

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Plans and cars also deal with smog – In October 2013, a month before the Ride for Hope, planes were grounded and highways were closed in northeast China due to poor visibility caused by smog. This 2013 image shows a thermal power plant discharging heavy smog in Jilin province.

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All is not polluted – The leg between Taizhou and Ningbo in Zhejiang Province offered autumn colors and clear-sky respite for Ride for Hope cyclists. The ride took place in mid-November.

The Road to Shanghai – Writer and cyclist Thomas Bird breathing (not so) easy on the smoggy route between Shenzhen to Shanghai.

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Shangahi haze – The Ride for Hope ended in Shanghai (pictured), a city often engulfed in smog. In November 2013, residents were advised to stay indoors when the Shanghai Environment Agency measured dangerously high air pollution levels.

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Team photo – The author's (front) Ride for Hope team was made up of two expats and five Chinese. And, in this pic, anyway, one easygoing photobomber.

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Still pedaling – The Ride for Hope bikers stopped in Shanghai. The smog doesn't. North of Shanghai, in Haozhou, residents deal with dense blankets of pollution. (Photo from 2013.)

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Not going away – In Hunan Province, the city of Changsha was enveloped in thick smog on January 14, 2014.

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Story highlights

The author pedaled more than 2,000 kilometers, much of it through epic smog

Charity bike ride started in Shenzhen, finished in Shanghai

Some area of ride were gorgeous and smog-free

Most of the riders in author's group found the air quality disturbing

The southern Chinese city of Suzhou has been eulogized by artists since the Tang Dynasty.

The poet Bai Juyi wrote: "In front of storied buildings everywhere waft the melodies of flutes, And by the door of every house are moored ships and boats."

Today, Suzhou's classical gardens are UNESCO World Heritage Sites and its canal network, bisected by gorgeous stone bridges, has earned the nickname, "The Venice of the East."

Yet when our small convoy of cyclists approached the city that so impressed Venetian traveler Marco Polo in the 12th century, there was little to wax lyrical about.

The whole of the Yangtze River Delta was enshrouded in headline-making smog.

I'd run into veteran Chinese rock musician Zhao Laoda in Shenzhen just before I'd set off on Ride For Hope, a three-week, 2,000-kilometer charity bike ride from Shenzhen to Shanghai organized by Shangri-la Hotels and Resorts.

Zhao had retreated south for the winter to avoid "the smog and cold" of Beijing.

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"The country's done," he complained. "Only in the mountains will you find unpolluted areas."

Bikers in Beijing have gotten used to the smog. That doesn't mean they like it.

On day three we finally left the manufacturing lands behind.

Beyond the scenic city of Huizhou, our troop of seven cyclists pedaled along relatively empty roads through broad expanses of green, undulating farmland.

But construction was never far away.

Even in the hinterland, real estate companies are busy erecting malls and high-rise apartment buildings.

According to various sources, as much as 60% of the world's cement is dumped annually in China, creating a dust cloud that NASA has photographed from space.

Many in China stoically maintain environmental damage is a consequence of the transition from a feudal agrarian society to a modern, predominantly urban one.

The words of industrializing Britain's laureate, Charles Dickens, are often invoked. Didn't Europe experience the same thing? And hasn't it cleaned up its act since?

The difference, of course, is that China's industrial revolution and urbanization program is of a scale unsurpassed in human history, a continental shift that's creating huge conurbations, as cities, like those of the Pearl River Delta, converge.

But it was Lu Baokang, a cycling enthusiast from Guangxi, who best summed up the contrast between the grotesque and the gorgeous we'd witnessed cycling China's southeast.

"The big mountains and scenery have lifted my spirit more than I can say, but the pollution has been too serious. I wish there was some way to tell the world how liberating and non-polluting cycling is."